IACC Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Portfolio Analysis: Project Listing
Project Id Project Number Sub Project Number Funder Principal Investigator Project Title Project Description Fiscal Year Funding Category Strategic Plan Objective Objective Status Code Arra Funded? Federal/Private Institution State/Country Project Status Web Link 1 Web Link 2 Web Link 3 Active Current Award Period
Project Id: 3184 2239 None Autism Speaks Bowler, Dermot Past, present, and future-oriented thinking about the self in children with autism spectrum disorder Parents often note that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) struggle to tell them what happened during their day, and research has confirmed that people with ASD do have difficulties in recalling specific personally-experienced events. The ability to recall the past is crucial because it enables one to anticipate and plan for the future and to develop behavioral flexibility and adaptability. The inability to do so could account for the lack of flexibility and anxiety typical of those with ASD.Dr. Bowler and colleagues will assess the ability of children and adults with ASD to think about themselves in the past, present and future in order to determine how these skills impact the severity of restricted and stereotyped patterns of behavior. If difficulties in this arena do contribute to greater behavioral impairment, new interventions can be developed and employed to target this deficit. $0.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private City University London United Kingdom Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/past-present-and-future-oriented-thinking-about-self-children-autism-x09spectrum-diso?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2FPast%2C+present%2C+and+future-oriented+thinking+about+the+self+in+children+with+autism+spectrum+disorder No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3370 725125 None National Science Foundation Hauser, Marc HSD: Collaborative research: Evolutionary, developmental, and neurobiological sources of moral judgments A multidisciplinary research team will study various aspects of the nature of moral judgments and the causal factors for the capacity for cross-cultural variation and change. The project measures the nature of moral decisions across different time periods (evolutionary, developmental, and cultural) and among different test populations (nonhuman animals, normal and neurobiologically impaired human infants and adults, and different cultures). It uses different methods for each type of study including experiments of primates, large-scale internet studies, and neuropsychological investigation of patients. The investigators will to study two psychological factors: (1) The idea that intending to harm another as a means to the greater good is less permissible than harming merely as a foreseen side effect (the intention principle) and (2) The idea that acts that cause harm to others will be perceived as morally worse than omissions of an act that causes equivalent harm (the omission principle). Studies of these principles will be conducted with nonhuman primates and human infants to test the hypothesis that some of the core cognitive building blocks that are necessary for these principles (e.g., perceiving intentions and goals) are in place but only take on moral significance in our own species, and only later in child development. The investigators will test the hypothesis that these principles are universal but with cross-cultural variation in their specific content (e.g., who can be harmed) by using both large-scale internet-based studies as well as studies of hunter-gather and subsistence-based societies. They will test the hypothesis that governments can impose explicit laws that alter how people behave yet these explicit norms do not penetrate people's intuitive moral judgments. The investigators also will examine how neural insult systematically changes the nature of particular moral judgments among patient populations (i.e., autistics, individuals with damage to the frontal lobes and amygdala). The project is expected to enhance basic understanding of how humans evolved the capacity to deliver moral judgments, how such judgments change over development and across cultures, and how the capacity breaks down following selective neural insult. Results from this project are likely to be useful in the arenas of justice, public policy, education, and clinical treatment, showcasing the biological and psychological mechanisms that humans bring to the moral table, and how they respond to policy that may be at odds with their intuitive moral sense. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for graduate students, including students from minority groups and developing nations. $143,883.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Harvard University Massachusetts Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0725125 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0725125&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2007-2010
Project Id: 3373 642529 None National Science Foundation Hirsh-Pasek, Kathy Collaborative research: The path to verb learning Events are the basic units of human experiences. People speak not only of individual objects like 'towels' and 'floors', but also of events like 'bending', and of goal-directed actions like 'picking up a towel from the floor.' The central aim of this research is to characterize how humans perceive and conceptualize information about the nuggets of human experience, the non-linguistic events that are often labeled by language. Using insights from psychology and cognitive linguistics, this work hypothesizes that infants and adults use path information as a wedge into the flux and flow of a dynamic world; that path is central to how people find the atoms of events. Thus, pushing becomes pulling when the path forward is reversed. Eight experiments with infants and adults test this hypothesis by posing three questions: 1) Can infants use geometric information about path trajectories to decompose their world into events?; 2) Can infants and adults recognize categories of events paths even when they appear in new locations and in different orientations?; 3) Are infants and adults sensitive to statistical probabilities within events, building event hierarchies that are based on path changes (e.g., 'kicking the ball' rather than just raising the leg, moving it forward, contact with ball, ball projects forward)? Results from this foundational research inform both research and application. First, it forwards our knowledge of basic perception asking about the role that path plays in the interpretation of events. Second, given that events are the atoms of experience, this work speaks to how infants represent the world of events and whether they do so in ways that are compatible with adults. Third, exploration of how infants build a basis for event perception and representation positions researchers to ask how the children's burgeoning language knowledge interacts with their event perception. Relational terms like 'around, on, kick, throw' (prepositions and verbs) require that infants are aware not only of isolated objects or actions in their world, but of relations between these entities, relations through which grammar is born. Fourth, children with language deficits like those with autism often have difficulty learning relational terms. Some research suggests that the root of their problem lies not in language per se, but in the processing of event structures codified by language. Thus, diagnostic criteria relevant to both perception and language emerge in the context of this research. $66,000.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Temple University Pennsylvania Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0642529 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0642529&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2007-2011
Project Id: 3374 811450 None National Science Foundation Hodgins, Jessica Exploring the uncanny valley In 1970, an eminent Japanese roboticist, Masahiro Mori, proposed the "uncanny valley" curve to describe the emotional response of humans to nonhuman agents. His hypothesis was that as an agent is made more humanlike, the observer's familiarity does not increase as one would intuit, but falls into a ``valley of eeriness,'' when the agent closely yet imperfectly impersonates a human being. With progress in computer graphics allowing increasingly realistic rendering of forms and motion, the uncanny valley has become a high-stakes concern of the entertainment industry. The uncanny valley hypothesis also poses a fundamental scientific question: What do people perceive when they view human motion and how are those perceptions affected by realistic, nearly realistic, or caricatured human motion? With the growing accuracy of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurement and analysis techniques, there is a new tool with which to answer these questions. The PIs are using fMRI, eye tracking, and traditional perceptual metrics to explore the existence of and causes of the uncanny valley. Motion capture data (including skin and muscle deformation), keyframed animations, high speed video, and clips from feature films are used to construct a set of stimuli with which to answer these questions. The outcomes of this research is a greater understanding of the perception of animated human motion which will inform practitioners and researchers in computer graphics and allow them to focus on the aspects of human animation that will have the greatest impact. The research has broad impacts on science and society. For example, the work conducted here has applicability to the scientific understanding of autism, a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder that effects social functioning in multiple domains including the perception of other people's actions and intentions. $90,500.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Carnegie Mellon University Pennsylvania Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0811450 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0811450&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2008-2012
Project Id: 3375 746067 None National Science Foundation Holt, Lori Collaborative research: Learning complex auditory categories The growth in globalization across traditional language boundaries suggests a need for efficient second language (L2) acquisition training regimens. One of the most significant challenges for adult language learners is learning to hear fine distinctions among non-native sounds not used in the native language; such learning may require decades of experience with the second language. A classic example is the difficulty native Japanese have learning English /r/ and /l/, a sound contrast not present in Japanese. With prior NSF support, Drs. Holt and Lotto have uncovered principles of auditory learning using controlled experiments with non-speech sounds and have used these principles to design optimal training regimens. This project uncovered how characteristics of training, feedback and presentation mode affected auditory learning. The present project will apply these findings to adult learning of non-native speech sounds, with the aim of producing more efficient L2 learning. One series of studies will investigate the benefits of video-game-based training (found to foster non-speech category learning) in learning non-native speech sounds. Another series of experiments will test whether manipulation of the variability of sound cues, found to be important in non-speech auditory learning in prior research, is effective in shifting the attention listeners give to these cues in second-language learning. Such shifts appear to be important for many cases of L2 learning, such as native Japanese speakers learning English /r/ and /l/. Beyond practical application in adult second language learning, the project has important theoretical implications for understanding human auditory perception and language processing. Such understanding is a prerequisite to developing rehabilitative techniques for disorders such as autism, dyslexia, central auditory processing disorder and specific language impairment. $57,416.50 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Carnegie Mellon University Pennsylvania Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0746067 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0746067&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2008-2012
Project Id: 3376 843773 None National Science Foundation Huber, David Collaborative research: Modeling perception and memory: Studies in priming This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). It is said that "seeing is believing," and we take it for granted that vision operates efficiently and accurately. This suggests that vision is easy. However, failed attempts at producing computer vision demonstrate exactly the opposite--vision is perhaps the most difficult operation performed by the brain, requiring one third of the neocortex. The NSF-funded research project being conducted by David Huber at the University of California, San Diego and Richard Shiffrin at Indiana University focuses on an important question in visual perception: How is it that we can keep separate what we are currently viewing from that which came immediately before? In truth, vision is constantly "blurring" together information over time, such as when viewing the smooth motion at the cinema that is produced by a sequence of still images shown in rapid succession. However, while reading, our eyes constantly move from one word to the next, and yet unlike a movie, we see each word separately and do not confuse it with the previous words. To accomplish this, the brain must have a trick for deciding when the previous image should be combined with the next image and when each should be kept separate. Huber and Shiffrin hypothesize that the process of identifying each word or each movie image causes it to be suppressed so as to reduce inappropriate blending with the next word or image. In the case of a movie, the images appear too briefly, and the blending produces apparent movement. In the case of reading, our eyes dwell on each word exactly the right amount of time to fully identify and suppress each word so as to reduce confusion with the next word. Huber and Shiffrin investigate this ability to separate visual images in a variety of tasks, including reading, face identification, and rapid detection of change, to name just a few examples. If their hypothesis is correct, manipulating the timing of stimuli should produce analogous behavioral effects in all of these situations. Beyond laboratory studies, this hypothesis may also improve computer vision systems in situations requiring rapid identification. For instance, computer controlled cameras at the airport might be used to identify faces of suspects, but this requires separating one face from another when there is a crowd of faces moving quickly past the camera. The results of this research may also be relevant to disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and dyslexia, which often involve a component of distorted or abnormal perception. For instance, one account of dyslexia suggests that reading difficulties arise from an inappropriate blending of letters and words. Understanding the manner in which the brain separates visual information over time may help with the diagnosis, interpretation, and treatment of these perceptual deficits. The human perceptual system receives a constant stream of continually changing information. For example, the eyes move several times each second, providing different views of different objects or words. This project investigates the dynamic process of separating in time and space information pertaining to previous sources (e.g., a previously viewed word) from information pertaining to the current source (e.g., the currently viewed word). Behavioral studies will address the process of discounting that serves to reduce perceptual separation errors due to source confusion. This discounting process can be understood at multiple levels of description and the proposed experiments test complimentary and related mathematical models at the causal and neural levels of analysis. Two causal models use Bayesian statistical techniques and focus on optimizing perception in a noisy world perceived with a limited capacity processing system; discounting is implemented as "explaining away" between competing sources. The neural model implements discounting through habituation that arises with the transient depletion of synaptic resources. In combination, these models demonstrate why perceptual discounting exists and the particular manner in which it is implemented. A wide variety of experimental paradigms involve the rapid presentation of visual objects and the proposed studies use these models to investigate whether perceptual source confusion and discounting may provide a unified account of these phenomena. Besides visual short-term priming with words, the proposed studies examine the popular perceptual and cognitive paradigms of repetition blindness, flanker effects, the attentional blink, negative priming, semantic satiation, and affective priming. All of these paradigms involve presenting a picture, word, or symbol on a computer screen followed by a second presentation that is either identical, positively related, or negatively related to the first presentation. An important goal of this endeavor is to provide a unified account of these perceptual phenomena that are currently considered in isolation by researchers. $90,145.67 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable Yes Federal University of California, San Diego California Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0843773 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0843773&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2012
Project Id: 3290 2R01HD046526-06A1 None National Institutes of Health Lee, Kang Development of face processing expertise This research program investigates how typically developing infants and children acquire the ability to classify faces into different categories according to their gender, race, age, and species and the ability to recognize individual faces from within these categories. First, researchers will examine infants and children from several countries to capitalize on their naturally occurring experiential differences with faces of different races, genders, ages, and species. Second, they will use a training paradigm to experimentally induce different experiences with faces of various categories to infants and children. The results from this research will provide the normative bench mark against which clinicians can evaluate the face processing abilities of children with various developmental and neurological disorders (e.g., autism, William's syndrome, developmental prosopagnosia). The methodologies developed from the program of research will enable clinicians to develop appropriate assessment tools to identify and diagnose infants and children with potential face processing problems. Further, results from training paradigm can be used to develop evidence-based intervention programs to treat face processing deficits in childhood. Finally, research findings may also provide information about the origin of social biases such as race-, gender-, and age-stereotypes and prejudices, and methods to reduce them. $360,996.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Toronto Canada New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7884839&icde=8906177 No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2015
Project Id: 3378 725169 None National Science Foundation Leslie, Alan HSD: Collaborative research: Evolutionary, developmental, and neurobiological sources of moral judgments A multidisciplinary research team will study various aspects of the nature of moral judgments and the causal factors for the capacity for cross-cultural variation and change. The project measures the nature of moral decisions across different time periods (evolutionary, developmental, and cultural) and among different test populations (nonhuman animals, normal and neurobiologically impaired human infants and adults, and different cultures). It uses different methods for each type of study including experiments of primates, large-scale internet studies, and neuropsychological investigation of patients. The investigators will to study two psychological factors: (1) The idea that intending to harm another as a means to the greater good is less permissible than harming merely as a foreseen side effect (the intention principle) and (2) The idea that acts that cause harm to others will be perceived as morally worse than omissions of an act that causes equivalent harm (the omission principle). Studies of these principles will be conducted with nonhuman primates and human infants to test the hypothesis that some of the core cognitive building blocks that are necessary for these principles (e.g., perceiving intentions and goals) are in place but only take on moral significance in our own species, and only later in child development. The investigators will test the hypothesis that these principles are universal but with cross-cultural variation in their specific content (e.g., who can be harmed) by using both large-scale internet-based studies as well as studies of hunter-gather and subsistence-based societies. They will test the hypothesis that governments can impose explicit laws that alter how people behave yet these explicit norms do not penetrate people's intuitive moral judgments. The investigators also will examine how neural insult systematically changes the nature of particular moral judgments among patient populations (i.e., autistics, individuals with damage to the frontal lobes and amygdala). The project is expected to enhance basic understanding of how humans evolved the capacity to deliver moral judgments, how such judgments change over development and across cultures, and how the capacity breaks down following selective neural insult. Results from this project are likely to be useful in the arenas of justice, public policy, education, and clinical treatment, showcasing the biological and psychological mechanisms that humans bring to the moral table, and how they respond to policy that may be at odds with their intuitive moral sense. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for graduate students, including students from minority groups and developing nations. $95,323.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick New Jersey Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0725169 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0725169&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2007-2011
Project Id: 3379 922184 None National Science Foundation Leslie, Alan Multiple systems in theory of mind development As a species, human beings are distinguished by an advanced social intelligence. We perceive in ourselves and in others an inner life of goals, fears, hopes, beliefs, imaginings, and longings. By sharing our inner lives, we cooperate, compete, and communicate in ways that are impossible for any other species and that remain a distant dream for even the most advanced computer systems. Although central to human nature, the ability to share our inner lives only began to be studied by cognitive psychologists in the 1980's and by neuroscientists in the 1990's. Many advances have been made since then in understanding the cognitive and brain bases of what is called our "theory of mind" ability. Theory-of-mind abilities can be experimentally demonstrated in typically developing 4-year-old children, while older and otherwise capable children and adolescents with autism are unable to pass the same tasks. The severe social and communicative impairments in autism may stem from a failure of theory of mind to develop in the brain. Although typically developing children do not generally demonstrate theory-of-mind abilities using traditional tasks until age four (with younger children failing such tasks), recent evidence demonstrates that infants show some aspects of this ability when measured with nonverbal tasks. These seemingly discrepant findings suggest that typically developing babies may have an unconscious and intuitive version of theory-of-mind abilities previously associated only with four-year-olds. If so, typical social development may depend upon the unfolding of a natural theory-of-mind 'instinct' that is expressed first at an intuitive, unconscious, and non-verbal level in the brain. Failure of developing brain systems to express this early 'instinct' may characterize autistic spectrum disorders. This project investigates these ideas by using a variety of experimental methods some of which probe spontaneous, intuitive (or "implicit") responses to social scenarios such as eye-gaze and looking behaviors, as well as traditional, more deliberative (or "explicit") measures such as answers to verbal questions about similar scenarios. Neurologically typical children will be studied in several age groups, from infants to older preschoolers, as well as children with autism. Through a multi-population, multi-method approach the project will reveal how multiple theory-of-mind systems interact in developing brain systems and how unconscious cognition gradually comes to connect with conscious verbal knowledge.The project integrates research with teaching and service to the broader community. Post-doctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students, including minorities and individuals from developing nations, are fully involved each year. Findings are disseminated not only through scholarly publications and meetings, but also through public lectures and through old and new media, including the internet. The project will help uncover the deep roots of human sociality and, by revealing how it develops, will enrich understanding of the foundations of human culture, the capacity for education and law, the social transmission of knowledge, children's and adults' intuitive social sense, and the nature of autistic spectrum disorders. $163,096.33 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick New Jersey Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0922184 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0922184&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2012
Project Id: 3381 746019 None National Science Foundation Lotto, Andrew Collaborative research: Learning complex auditory categories The growth in globalization across traditional language boundaries suggests a need for efficient second language (L2) acquisition training regimens. One of the most significant challenges for adult language learners is learning to hear fine distinctions among non-native sounds not used in the native language; such learning may require decades of experience with the second language. A classic example is the difficulty native Japanese have learning English /r/ and /l/, a sound contrast not present in Japanese. With prior NSF support, Drs. Holt and Lotto have uncovered principles of auditory learning using controlled experiments with non-speech sounds and have used these principles to design optimal training regimens. This project uncovered how characteristics of training, feedback and presentation mode affected auditory learning. The present project will apply these findings to adult learning of non-native speech sounds, with the aim of producing more efficient L2 learning. One series of studies will investigate the benefits of video-game-based training (found to foster non-speech category learning) in learning non-native speech sounds. Another series of experiments will test whether manipulation of the variability of sound cues, found to be important in non-speech auditory learning in prior research, is effective in shifting the attention listeners give to these cues in second-language learning. Such shifts appear to be important for many cases of L2 learning, such as native Japanese speakers learning English /r/ and /l/. Beyond practical application in adult second language learning, the project has important theoretical implications for understanding human auditory perception and language processing. Such understanding is a prerequisite to developing rehabilitative techniques for disorders such as autism, dyslexia, central auditory processing disorder and specific language impairment. $37,495.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Arizona Arizona Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0746019 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0746019&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2008-2012
Project Id: 3382 937307 None National Science Foundation Malle, Bertram Is there a hierarchy of social inference? Intentionality, mind, and morality Whenever people encounter another person's behavior, they have to process a bewildering amount of information: What is the person's gender, age, role, social group membership? Is the behavior intentional? What is the person's goal, what is she thinking, what is he feeling? Is this behavior good or bad? And does it reveal the person's personality? Answers to these questions demand social inferences: conjectures about the other person's intentional behavior, thoughts and feelings, and morality. Previous research has provided some insight into each of these inferences, but they were always studied in separation. In real life, different types of social inferences occur simultaneously within the human perceiver and must also be studied simultaneously in research. This project's first objective is therefore to investigate the relationships among these multiple inferences. Is there a hierarchy of social inferences -- a priority by which people infer intentionality, mind, and morality? (For example, do people assign blame to somebody even before they infer the person's specific goal?) How frequently and how fast are these inferences made, and do some inferences compete with each other or speed each other up? (For example, are inferences about goals faster than those about personality and do inferences of intentionality speed up inferences about blame?) The project's second objective is to investigate which information contained in an observed behavior triggers the various inferences -- that is, exactly what do people look at when they infer a behavior's intentionality, the actor's emotion, or the blameworthiness of the action? To conduct this research, the PI developed a theoretical model and experimental paradigm for the simultaneous examination of multiple social inferences. Unlike previous research that used written sentences to elicit social inferences, the present project presents videotaped human behaviors as dynamic experimental stimuli. Thus, while perceivers make social inferences as they normally would in real life, the researcher uses computerized presentation and measurement to assess the frequency and exact timing of these inferences. Moreover, with a fine-grained tracking of the perceiver's eye movements while watching the behaviors, the researcher can capture the specific information on which these inferences are based. By providing a clearer understanding of the fundamental social capacities involved in inferring intentionality, mental states, and morality, this project will inform legal processes, models of autism (where these capacities have been shown to be deficient), relationship counseling, and cross-cultural communication. Illuminating the exact processes by which people interpret each other's behavior will help meet a key challenge in contemporary society: to improve communication and avoid misunderstandings in personal, business, and political interactions. Furthermore, the theoretical and methodological innovations in this proposal will provide scientists with valuable new tools for the study of human social cognition. Finally, because many of the proposed studies can be conducted on a portable laptop computer, they permit recruitment of diverse community members who would normally not enter the psychologist's laboratory. The proposed research will be integrated into training and teaching of undergraduate and graduate students, benefit from national and international collaborations, and will be disseminated in scientific publications and communities across multiple disciplines. $67,910.67 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Brown University Rhode Island Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0937307 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0937307&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2012
Project Id: 3297 1R01EY020834-01 None National Institutes of Health Martinez, Aleix A study of the computational space of facial expressions of emotion Past research has been successful in defining how facial expressions of emotion are produced, including which muscle movements create the most commonly seen expressions. These facial expressions of emotion are then interpreted by the visual system, yet little is known about how these facial expressions are recognized. The overarching goal of this proposal is to define the form and dimensions of the cognitive (computational) space used in this visual recognition. Although facial expressions are produced by a complex set of muscle movements, expressions are generally easily identified at different spatial and time resolutions. The first set of experiments will determine how many pixels and milliseconds are needed to successfully identify different emotions. The role of configural features in the processing of expressions of emotion is not well understood, and the second part of the project will identify a number of these configural cues using real images of faces, manipulated versions of these face images, and schematic drawings. The specific features identified in these experiments will then be used to define a shape-based computational model that justifies those results and can also be used to make new predictions that can be verified with additional experiments with human subjects. Identifying which features are used by the cognitive system will help develop protocols for reducing their unwanted effects. $285,938.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal The Ohio State University Ohio New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7946918&icde=8904550 No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2015
Project Id: 3385 746009 None National Science Foundation Meier, Richard Doctoral dissertation research: Sign language in deaf and hearing autistic children This dissertation research will investigate how autism affects sign language in deaf children on the autism spectrum. There is a significant population of children with autism at schools for the deaf around the country, yet until now their language development has received little attention from researchers. The signing of approximately 40 autistic children enrolled at deaf schools in Massachusetts, Ohio, Iowa, Texas, and Oregon will be videotaped and analyzed. Through observations of interactions with teachers and classmates at school, as well as a sign elicitation test, the signing of these children will be compared with that of hearing autistic children who are being exposed to sign in addition to speech, as well as the signing of typically-developing deaf children. The project will test the hypothesis that the acquisition of sign language may pose specific challenges to children with autism. In particular, sign languages require learners to take the physical perspective of others in order to imitate and successfully reproduce signs, something that is not necessary for children acquiring spoken languages. This perspective-taking may be impaired in autism, leading to problems in sign language that are characteristically different from the problems found in autistic speech. A systematic analysis of deaf autistic children's signing could reveal particular points of difficulty and ultimately lead to improved assessments, interventions, and teaching strategies for autistic children. $5,930.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Texas at Austin Texas Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0746009 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0746009&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= http://search.engrant.com/project/UiGkp7/doctoral_dissertation_research_sign_language_in_deaf_and_hearing_autistic_children active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3395 750187 None National Science Foundation Schmidt, Richard Collaborative research: RUI: Perceptual pick-up processes in interpersonal coordination Movements in social interactions are often unintentionally synchronized and dance-like. Recent research in social neuroscience has proposed that a special evolved "mirror" subsystem may be the neural substrate that facilitates these social interactions as well as their more mental concomitants such as rapport, empathy, and dominance relations. One wedge into understanding how the interpersonal coordination patterns emerge from the neural substrate comes from principles of dynamical entrainment. In order to establish the dynamical interpersonal synergy that is the basis for both intentional and spontaneous coordination, people must be attuned to the relevant information in the interpersonal situation. The proposed research explores the perceptual basis of interpersonal entrainment. Studies record the movements of people when they interact with each other in a common task. Movement records are analyzed using spectral and nonlinear time series methods to determine how the coordination patterns are affected by specific properties of the interaction. One such property is the perceptual pickup rhythm (e.g., as indexed by eye movements), which may play a role in interpersonal coordination patterns. Other experiments investigate how interpersonal coordination is affected by the biological/social nature of environmental stimuli, the relationship between mimicry phenomena and more tacit interpersonal coordination, and how behavioral interpersonal coordination is affected by psychological coordination (e.g., rapport) of the individuals involved. This research will provide a better understanding of the tacit dimension of movement coordination in human social interactions and will constrain our understanding of the role that the nervous system plays in creating social behavior. Understanding the bases of interactional synchrony is also important for understanding psychological dysfunction, in that such synchrony breaks down in pathologies such as schizophrenia, autism and even marital dissatisfaction. $47,288.25 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal College of the Holy Cross Massachusetts Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0750187 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0750187&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2008-2012
Project Id: 3396 840998 None National Science Foundation Shiffrin, Richard Collaborative research: Modeling perception and memory: Studies in priming This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). It is said that "seeing is believing," and we take it for granted that vision operates efficiently and accurately. This suggests that vision is easy. However, failed attempts at producing computer vision demonstrate exactly the opposite--vision is perhaps the most difficult operation performed by the brain, requiring one third of the neocortex. The NSF-funded research project being conducted by David Huber at the University of California, San Diego and Richard Shiffrin at Indiana University focuses on an important question in visual perception: How is it that we can keep separate what we are currently viewing from that which came immediately before? In truth, vision is constantly "blurring" together information over time, such as when viewing the smooth motion at the cinema that is produced by a sequence of still images shown in rapid succession. However, while reading, our eyes constantly move from one word to the next, and yet unlike a movie, we see each word separately and do not confuse it with the previous words. To accomplish this, the brain must have a trick for deciding when the previous image should be combined with the next image and when each should be kept separate. Huber and Shiffrin hypothesize that the process of identifying each word or each movie image causes it to be suppressed so as to reduce inappropriate blending with the next word or image. In the case of a movie, the images appear too briefly, and the blending produces apparent movement. In the case of reading, our eyes dwell on each word exactly the right amount of time to fully identify and suppress each word so as to reduce confusion with the next word. Huber and Shiffrin investigate this ability to separate visual images in a variety of tasks, including reading, face identification, and rapid detection of change, to name just a few examples. If their hypothesis is correct, manipulating the timing of stimuli should produce analogous behavioral effects in all of these situations. Beyond laboratory studies, this hypothesis may also improve computer vision systems in situations requiring rapid identification. For instance, computer controlled cameras at the airport might be used to identify faces of suspects, but this requires separating one face from another when there is a crowd of faces moving quickly past the camera. The results of this research may also be relevant to disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and dyslexia, which often involve a component of distorted or abnormal perception. For instance, one account of dyslexia suggests that reading difficulties arise from an inappropriate blending of letters and words. Understanding the manner in which the brain separates visual information over time may help with the diagnosis, interpretation, and treatment of these perceptual deficits. The human perceptual system receives a constant stream of continually changing information. For example, the eyes move several times each second, providing different views of different objects or words. This project investigates the dynamic process of separating in time and space information pertaining to previous sources (e.g., a previously viewed word) from information pertaining to the current source (e.g., the currently viewed word). Behavioral studies will address the process of discounting that serves to reduce perceptual separation errors due to source confusion. This discounting process can be understood at multiple levels of description and the proposed experiments test complimentary and related mathematical models at the causal and neural levels of analysis. Two causal models use Bayesian statistical techniques and focus on optimizing perception in a noisy world perceived with a limited capacity processing system; discounting is implemented as "explaining away" between competing sources. The neural model implements discounting through habituation that arises with the transient depletion of synaptic resources. In combination, these models demonstrate why perceptual discounting exists and the particular manner in which it is implemented. A wide variety of experimental paradigms involve the rapid presentation of visual objects and the proposed studies use these models to investigate whether perceptual source confusion and discounting may provide a unified account of these phenomena. Besides visual short-term priming with words, the proposed studies examine the popular perceptual and cognitive paradigms of repetition blindness, flanker effects, the attentional blink, negative priming, semantic satiation, and affective priming. All of these paradigms involve presenting a picture, word, or symbol on a computer screen followed by a second presentation that is either identical, positively related, or negatively related to the first presentation. An important goal of this endeavor is to provide a unified account of these perceptual phenomena that are currently considered in isolation by researchers. $134,781.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable Yes Federal Indiana University Indiana Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0840998 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0840998&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2011
Project Id: 4365 1R01HD061455-01A1 None National Institutes of Health Smith, J. David; Beran, Michael Metacognition in comparative perspective The capacity to monitor one's state of learning, knowing, and remembering is critical to every intellectual and educational activity. Understanding the cognitive organization of this capacity in adult humans, and tracing its phylogenetic emergence, would support the development of animal models for metacognition, expand the range of metacognitive paradigms available to researchers, help illuminate the earliest roots of metacognition in human children, support the study of metacognition in language-delayed or autistic children, and possibly ground efforts to train metacognition in educationally challenged populations. Accordingly, this project explores the cognitive-monitoring and cognitive-control capacity that is called metacognition. The research design includes tasks that assess the monitoring of mental states by humans and nonhuman primates and their guiding control over their cognitive processes. These tasks will allow humans and monkeys to decline to complete difficult trials, to rate their confidence, to allocate study time adaptively, to self-evaluate their memory, and to judge the quality of their learning. Using these tasks, the proposed research will study the role of reinforcement/learning in metacognition, asking whether uncertainty and confidence can show independence from learning history and reinforcement contingencies while generalizing flexibly to novel tasks. The research will use methods of process dissociation from cognitive neuroscience to evaluate whether metacognitive judgments are executive and attentional in psychological character. It will ask whether metacognition is possible during temporally-extended problem solving by humans and animals, thus approaching metacognition chronometrically for the first time. It will explore the level of awareness that accompanies metacognition in humans and animals. It will broaden the comparative study of metacognition by examining judgments-of-learning and memory-quality criteria for the first time. It will also broaden the comparative study of metacognition by examining the cognitive-control dimension of metacognition. Cognitive control-by which information-processing strategies and information- gathering activities are flexibly tailored to task performance-is also a critical educational function. $234,705.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University at Buffalo, The State University of New York New York New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7879025&icde=8914231 No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2015
Project Id: 3397 518161 None National Science Foundation Sobel, David Children's causal learning and developing knowledge of mechanisms The world is full of causal knowledge that children must discover. While there is little doubt that children learn physical, psychological, and biological knowledge at an amazing capacity, there is only a modest understanding of how children represent this causal knowledge or learn new causal relations. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. David Sobel examines the idea that a particular computational framework serves as a model for representing and learning causal knowledge. Preliminary investigations for this study have demonstrated that preschoolers engage in causal inferences according to the premises of this model. Dr. Sobel seeks to extend these findings to toddlers and infants. This would demonstrate that children possess sophisticated causal reasoning abilities from very early ages and would map out a description of how children represent their causal knowledge. Dr. Sobel also suggests a particular algorithm that describes how causal learning takes place. He will investigate children's use of this algorithm when learning both physical and psychological knowledge. This would demonstrate why particular developmental differences in causal learning abilities are present during the infant and preschool years. Much recent research and contemporary thinking suggests that children take an active role in constructing knowledge of their environment. Exactly how children do this is still a mystery. Understanding how children represent and learn causal knowledge should enable researchers to determine how to promote such learning. This would allow us to design better interventions for education, particularly for science education. Understanding how environmental factors contribute to causal learning would shed insight into how negative factors could be reduced. This could prevent children from becoming at-risk learners early in life. Finally, many developmental disorders have been diagnosed by citing that children lack particular causal reasoning abilities (such as psychological knowledge in the case of autism). Understanding how children acquire such causal knowledge might enable us to determine why children with autism (and other at-risk populations) do not acquire such cognitive abilities. $55,308.60 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Brown University Rhode Island Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0518161 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0518161&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2005-2010
Project Id: 3179 n/a None Autism Science Foundation Tenenbaum, Elena Attentional distribution and word learning in children with autism This study will investigate how children with autism attend to information when learning new words and how that attention might affect their language development. We know from previous research that children with autism tend to look at social scenes differently than their typically developing peers. Recent research with typically developing children suggests that the way a child looks at social scenes can predict successful language development. To explore the possibility that attention to social scenes among autistic children might be affecting their language development, we will conduct an eye tracking study of visual attention in a word learning task. Children will watch videos of a person labeling new objects while we track their attention to the scene. We will then test the child's recognition of the newly learned words and compare their success to their patterns of attention to the word learning scenes. We will also investigate whether their ability to learn new words in the lab relates to their language development outside of the lab. It is our hope that the information we obtain in this study will lead to the development of new interventions for facilitating language learning in children with autism. $40,000.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private Brown University Rhode Island New http://www.autismsciencefoundation.org/what-we-fund/ASF-funded-research/current-grantees No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2011
Project Id: 3399 841746 None National Science Foundation Wegner, Daniel Dimensions of mind perception This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). We can not perceive other minds the way we perceive our own. So, we can not look into the mind of a patient in a persistent vegetative state to see if "someone is home," just as we can not really know what is going on in the mind of an infant or an animal, or even figure out if it makes any sense to think of a computer as having a mind. Mind perception can be profoundly puzzling, and this research pursues the recent finding that people usually try to solve the puzzle by perceiving minds in terms of two fundamental dimensions -- a mind's capacity for experience (Can it feel things?) and a mind's capacity for agency (Can it do things?). People see normal adult humans as having both experience and agency, whereas they see some kinds of minds primarily as having experiences (e.g., babies), others mainly in terms of agency (e.g., robots), and yet others as having little of either (e.g., a person in a persistent vegetative state). To examine how experience and agency are perceived, this research focuses a series of experiments and large online surveys on how these two dimensions shape judgments of people and other entities with various kinds of minds. The studies explore how mind perception can be biased by exposure to particular kinds of minds, how mind perception breaks down when perceivers are under mental load or stress, how judgments of the quality of a person's life can depend on the dimensions, how the dimensions contribute to judgments of humanness, and how they influence the way different minds are treated in a moral sense--for example, holding them responsible for actions or extending them help when they are in trouble. The findings are expected to offer new insight into the ways people understand entities in the world that may have minds, but whose status is puzzling because they do not conform easily to the way we conceptualize the normal adult human mind. This project marks an attempt to consider scientifically some of the more profound and difficult moral questions we face as a species. Issues of where we ought to draw the line in perceiving minds -- the minds of children, animals, brain-damaged people, or even computers -- can be informed by examining where and how we do draw a line. In exploring how people go about deciding that something has a mind, this research illuminates key conditions that can increase and decrease mind perception, and sets the foundation for identifying the brain areas implicated in these perceptual processes. Findings from this research can have significant social impact by revealing how mind perception can be improved: for example, how physicians can be trained to perceive the minds of patients with appropriate empathy, or how teachers can be guided to appreciate the minds of students in ways that will help the students to learn. Finally, because deficits in mind perception may accompany mental disorders, this research can also be useful to inform psychological treatment programs for disorders such as autism, personality disorders, and schizophrenia. It has often been hypothesized that psychological treatments can be effective when they remedy specific lapses in mind perception abilities, but this research offers new ways to understand the influence of such treatments that may substantially enhance their chances of success. $112,584.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable Yes Federal Harvard University Massachusetts Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0841746 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0841746&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2012
Project Id: 3400 951489 None National Science Foundation Woodward, Amanda Action anticipation in infants Humans are an intensely social species, and this fact is evident even at the earliest points in development. Infants are highly attentive to their social partners and cognitively engaged with them. In particular, research over the last decade has revealed that young infants view others' behavior not as purely physical movements but rather as actions structured by the person's goals and states of attention. This sensitivity to the goal structure of action is fundamental to human experience and critical for social and cognitive development. However, current findings do not tell us whether and how infants recruit this sensitivity to others' goals in order to predict their actions in real time. Anticipating others' goal-directed actions is essential for many forms of social coordination, including one-on-one social interactions, collaborative activities and communication. This project will address this gap in the literature by investigating infants' ability to visually predict a person's next action based on information about his or her prior goals and focus of attention. By using a remote eye-tracking system to record infants' gaze shifts as they view actions on a video monitor, the studies will investigate the range of situations in which infants of different ages can generate action predictions. In addition, the studies will explore two potential contributors to the development of action prediction -- infants' own experience producing well-structured actions and infants' sensitivity to linguistic information about a person's goals. In this way, the project will both document the emergence of action prediction during infancy and provide insights into the developmental processes that contribute to this ability in infants. This project will provide foundational insights into a critical and largely unstudied aspect of social competence in infants. More broadly, this work will inform our understanding of social, cognitive and linguistic development because it will shed light on the social-cognitive processes that undergird young children's social learning in these domains. The experiments will also develop new research methods for assessing social information processing in infants. Because the eye-tracking methods developed in these studies can also be adapted for use with broader populations, this research will lay the foundation for comparative work across ages, populations, and possibly species. These eye-tracking methods may be particularly useful in participants who have limited abilities to respond to verbal instructions, such as individuals with autism. By elucidating the early development of an important aspect of social cognition, this work may also yield important insights into understanding clinical disorders that involve deficits in social reasoning, social attention, and the on-line interpretation of others' actions (for example, autism and conduct disorder). $99,788.75 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Chicago Illinois New http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0951489 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0951489&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2010-2014
Project Id: 3211 2731 None Autism Speaks Robins, Diana Psychophysiological mechanisms of emotion expression Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have difficulty perceiving emotional cues such as facial expression, tone of voice, or body posture, which contributes to impairments in social skills. Previous research has shown that while typically developing individuals automatically mimic facial expressions when viewing pictures of emotional facial expressions, individuals with ASD tend not to respond in this way. The present study will examine automatic facial mimicry in 20 individuals with ASD in response to both visual and audio emotional cues. Rather than still photos, more realistic audio-video cues will be used. Facial movement and expression in response to cues will be measured using sensors attached to the face. Researchers will determine whether deficits in automatic facial mimicry in correlate with emotion perception and social engagement. $59,668.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private Georgia State University Georgia Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/psychophysiological-mechanisms-emotion-perception?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2FPsychophysiological+mechanisms+of+emotion+expression No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3214 4721 None Autism Speaks Shield, Aaron Visual perspective-taking and the acquisition of American Sign Language by deaf children with autism This research aims to study how deaf children on the autism spectrum acquire American Sign Language (ASL). The researcher will examine the sign language of deaf autistic children in comparison with typically-developing deaf children. The children's performance on a series of linguistic tasks will be analyzed in order to determine whether an impairment in visual perspective taking is evident in deaf autistic children, as well as what effect such an impairment may have on the acquisition of sign language. Results from this study will give us a better understanding of visual perspective taking in sign language, which could help teachers of autistic children, both deaf and hearing, develop better instructional strategies for these children. $0.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private University of Texas at Austin Texas Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/visual-perspective-taking-and-acquisition-american-sign-language-deaf-children-autism?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2FVisual+perspective-taking+and+the+acquisition+of+American+Sign+Language+by+deaf+children+with+autism No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3215 2225 None Autism Speaks Stewart, Mary Phonological processing in the autism spectrum One possible source of communication problems in individuals with autism is their failure to put the individual sounds of spoken language in context. For instance, in conversation people frequently mispronounce words, and previous research by Dr. Stewart and colleagues has shown that individuals with "autistic traits" are less likely to put the word into context to correctly perceive the intended word.In this study, Dr. Stewart's fellow will assess whether this lack of "ability to infer when listening to others" is apparent in individuals with autism and Asperger Syndrome and to explore the factors that can affect the perception of spoken language. Factors such as the frequency of the word in a language, its phonetic similarity to the mispronounced word, and its social and emotional meaning will all be examined for their ability to enhance correct perception of an intended message. $0.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private Heriot-Watt University United Kingdom Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/phonological-processing-autism-spectrum?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2FPhonological+processing+in+the+autism+spectrum No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2011
Project Id: 3336 5P50HD055748-04 1 National Institutes of Health Strauss, Mark ACE Center: Development of categorization, facial knowledge in low & high functioning autism This grant focuses on one of the most basic and critical aspects of information processing- categorization. This project will extend current research on children and adults with high functioning autism (HFA) on processing categorical information about objects and facial information including gender, emotional expression, recognition and attractiveness. Studies will take a more in depth look at the mechanisms that underlie development of categorical expertise. $393,174.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Ongoing http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8126279&icde=8970099 No URL available. No URL available. active 2007-2012
Project Id: 3238 1R03MH086743-01A1 None National Institutes of Health Alvarez, George Learning and compression in human working memory An important, yet relatively unexplored aspect of learning and working memory is how, and under what conditions, a perceiver can capitalize on regularities in the environment to remember more information. How can our prior experiences influence how we remember our current experiences? How can such influences be exploited as tools to enhance cognitive processes in those with learning disabilities (e.g., in autism), or to assist those with memory deficits? To address these issues, this study makes use of a powerful form of implicit learning known as visual statistical learning. Previous research has shown that observers are extremely sensitive to regularities in the visual environment (e.g., quickly learning that 'A' is usually followed by 'B'). Surprisingly, this learning is often completely implicit: when asked to explicitly report these regularities, observers perform at chance. This implies that visual statistical learning is a powerful process that operates automatically without our intent or conscious control. However, it remains unclear what the benefits of visual statistical learning are for memory processes. In particular, statistical regularities are a form of redundancy, and to the extent that human memory compresses redundant information, learning regularities between objects should enable observers to remember information about more objects. The proposed experiments have three aims: (1) to determine whether visual statistical learning enables observers to compress information and remember more, (2) to determine the "units" of compression, and (3) to determine the "level" at which compression occurs. To investigate these issues, observers will be required to remember simple objects. Over time, some observers will see patterns in the input (e.g., 'A' often occurs with 'B'), while other observers will see random input. To the extent that observers can learn regularities, and compress them to form more efficient memory representations, observers in the patterned group should remember details about more objects. Previous research has not directly explored how visual statistical learning impacts the capacity of working memory, and the proposed studies will provide important insight into the interactions between learning and memory. By studying how statistical learning impacts working memory and cognition, this research has the potential to increase understanding of mental illnesses with learning or memory related symptoms. For instance, individuals with autism have certain learning deficits, but it is unknown whether statistical learning, and its interaction with working memory, is impaired in autism, as well. The proposed studies lay the groundwork for future clinical translational research addressing such questions. $84,000.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Harvard University Massachusetts New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7894019&icde=8916611 No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2012
Project Id: 3344 3R01MH081153-02S1 None National Institutes of Health Terrace, Herbert Cognitive mechanisms of serially organized behavior (supplement) Ordinal relationships, or the concept of establishing order, rank, or position in a series (e.g., first, second, third), exert a pervasive influence on behavior. Studies in humans and animals have shown that a non-linguistic basis may underlie such serial learning, and the proposed research will advance understanding of the representation of order in humans and monkeys. The studies will use a variety of proven methods for training monkeys to execute lists composed of arbitrary stimuli and stimuli that can be characterized as inherently ordered. In one task, for example, the subjects must learn to generate a representation of an entire sequence and their current position in that sequence as they move from item to item. In another task using transitive inference (inferential reasoning), subjects are rewarded when they choose the correct item from a pair of stimuli to establish an order for the series of items. They are then tested on their ability to infer the correct item from pairs of non-adjacent items. The hypothesis is that the nonverbal representation of an ordinal relationship can be transferred between the ordinal (ordering) tasks tested in these experiments (spatial, numerical, psychophysical, serial, or transitive discrimination tasks). The results may have particular implication for developing nonverbal diagnostic tools for autistic children. $25,029.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Columbia University New York New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8076996&icde=6634985 No URL available. No URL available. active 2009-2010
Project Id: 3343 5R01MH081153-03 None National Institutes of Health Terrace, Herbert Cognitive mechanisms of serially organized behavior Ordinal relationships, or the concept of establishing order, rank, or position in a series (e.g., first, second, third), exert a pervasive influence on behavior. Studies in humans and animals have shown that a non-linguistic basis may underlie such serial learning, and the proposed research will advance understanding of the representation of order in humans and monkeys. The studies will use a variety of proven methods for training monkeys to execute lists composed of arbitrary stimuli and stimuli that can be characterized as inherently ordered. In one task, for example, the subjects must learn to generate a representation of an entire sequence and their current position in that sequence as they move from item to item. In another task using transitive inference (inferential reasoning), subjects are rewarded when they choose the correct item from a pair of stimuli to establish an order for the series of items. They are then tested on their ability to infer the correct item from pairs of non-adjacent items. The hypothesis is that the nonverbal representation of an ordinal relationship can be transferred between the ordinal (ordering) tasks tested in these experiments (spatial, numerical, psychophysical, serial, or transitive discrimination tasks). The results may have particular implication for developing nonverbal diagnostic tools for autistic children. $349,715.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Columbia University New York Ongoing http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7910551&icde=6634985 No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2012
Project Id: 3221 4787 None Autism Speaks Zaki, Jamil Informational and neural bases of empathic accuracy in autism spectrum disorder People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties with communication and social interactions which likely stem from problems with social cognition, or the ability to understand the thoughts and emotions of others. While several tests have previously been developed to measure social cognition, these tests use relatively simple stimuli such as pictures or cartoons. These stimuli are quite different from the emotions and thoughts people express in true social interactions, and thus it is unclear whether improved performance on these simplified tests of social cognition reflects real improvement in the social functioning of people with ASD. In the proposed project, the predoctoral fellow will use a more realistic Empathic Accuracy test to explore social cognition in ASD. In the Empathic Accuracy test, participants attempt to identify the real emotions of people in videos, rather than still pictures or cartoons. This task requires the integration of verbal cues, non-verbal cues, and information about social situations in a flexible and dynamic way which more accurately simulates true social interaction. This test will be used to examine how people with ASD use different types of information in a social context to understand what other people are feeling, as well as to examine the neural pathways involved in understanding realistically portrayed emotions. $28,000.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private Columbia University New York Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/informational-and-neural-bases-empathic-accuracy-autism-spectrum-disorder?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2Fzaki No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3361 722005 None National Science Foundation Damasio, Antonio HSD: Collaborative research: Evolutionary, developmental, and neurobiological sources of moral judgments A multidisciplinary research team will study various aspects of the nature of moral judgments and the causal factors for the capacity for cross-cultural variation and change. The project measures the nature of moral decisions across different time periods (evolutionary, developmental, and cultural) and among different test populations (nonhuman animals, normal and neurobiologically impaired human infants and adults, and different cultures). It uses different methods for each type of study including experiments of primates, large-scale internet studies, and neuropsychological investigation of patients. The investigators will to study two psychological factors: (1) The idea that intending to harm another as a means to the greater good is less permissible than harming merely as a foreseen side effect (the intention principle) and (2) The idea that acts that cause harm to others will be perceived as morally worse than omissions of an act that causes equivalent harm (the omission principle). Studies of these principles will be conducted with nonhuman primates and human infants to test the hypothesis that some of the core cognitive building blocks that are necessary for these principles (e.g., perceiving intentions and goals) are in place but only take on moral significance in our own species, and only later in child development. The investigators will test the hypothesis that these principles are universal but with cross-cultural variation in their specific content (e.g., who can be harmed) by using both large-scale internet-based studies as well as studies of hunter-gather and subsistence-based societies. They will test the hypothesis that governments can impose explicit laws that alter how people behave yet these explicit norms do not penetrate people's intuitive moral judgments. The investigators also will examine how neural insult systematically changes the nature of particular moral judgments among patient populations (i.e., autistics, individuals with damage to the frontal lobes and amygdala). The project is expected to enhance basic understanding of how humans evolved the capacity to deliver moral judgments, how such judgments change over development and across cultures, and how the capacity breaks down following selective neural insult. Results from this project are likely to be useful in the arenas of justice, public policy, education, and clinical treatment, showcasing the biological and psychological mechanisms that humans bring to the moral table, and how they respond to policy that may be at odds with their intuitive moral sense. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for graduate students, including students from minority groups and developing nations. $90,073.75 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Southern California California Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0722005 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0722005&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2007-2011
Project Id: 3362 847653 None National Science Foundation Dilley, Laura CAREER: The role of prosody in word segmentation and lexical access This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Understanding how humans comprehend speech is an unsolved and challenging problem, in part because of the many-to-many mapping between the acoustical properties of the speech signal (i.e., frequency, timing, and amplitude) and the words perceived by the listener. The focus of this research is on the contributions of voice pitch, loudness, and speech rate (collectively termed prosody) to understanding spoken words. Previously, these prosodic aspects of the speech signal have been assumed to play a minor role in spoken word recognition, word segmentation, and lexical access. However, recent results suggest that speech prosody can have very significant effects on how words are understood. This research holds potential for significant advancements in human health, technology, and science. For example, perception or production of voice pitch, loudness, and/or speech timing are often highly disrupted in many disorders affecting speech and language, including dyslexia, autism, stuttering, Parkinson's disease, aphasia, and dysarthria. The proposed research may lead to new insights regarding mechanisms underlying these disorders, which will inform the development of better treatments for those afflicted. In addition, the research has potential to lead to improved speech technology applications, from enhanced automatic speech recognition by computer, to more natural-sounding computer-generated speech. The work provides research experiences for students at the high school, undergraduate and graduate levels. $92,994.80 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable Yes Federal Michigan State University Michigan Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0847653 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0847653&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2014
Project Id: 3365 642632 None National Science Foundation Golinkoff, Roberta Collaborative research: The path to verb learning Events are the basic units of human experiences. People speak not only of individual objects like 'towels' and 'floors', but also of events like 'bending', and of goal-directed actions like 'picking up a towel from the floor.' The central aim of this research is to characterize how humans perceive and conceptualize information about the nuggets of human experience, the non-linguistic events that are often labeled by language. Using insights from psychology and cognitive linguistics, this work hypothesizes that infants and adults use path information as a wedge into the flux and flow of a dynamic world; that path is central to how people find the atoms of events. Thus, pushing becomes pulling when the path forward is reversed. Eight experiments with infants and adults test this hypothesis by posing three questions: 1) Can infants use geometric information about path trajectories to decompose their world into events?; 2) Can infants and adults recognize categories of events paths even when they appear in new locations and in different orientations?; 3) Are infants and adults sensitive to statistical probabilities within events, building event hierarchies that are based on path changes (e.g., 'kicking the ball' rather than just raising the leg, moving it forward, contact with ball, ball projects forward)? Results from this foundational research inform both research and application. First, it forwards our knowledge of basic perception asking about the role that path plays in the interpretation of events. Second, given that events are the atoms of experience, this work speaks to how infants represent the world of events and whether they do so in ways that are compatible with adults. Third, exploration of how infants build a basis for event perception and representation positions researchers to ask how the children's burgeoning language knowledge interacts with their event perception. Relational terms like 'around, on, kick, throw' (prepositions and verbs) require that infants are aware not only of isolated objects or actions in their world, but of relations between these entities, relations through which grammar is born. Fourth, children with language deficits like those with autism often have difficulty learning relational terms. Some research suggests that the root of their problem lies not in language per se, but in the processing of event structures codified by language. Thus, diagnostic criteria relevant to both perception and language emerge in the context of this research. $33,000.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Delaware Delaware Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0642632 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0642632&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2007-2011
Project Id: 3266 1R21DC010867-01 None National Institutes of Health Grossman, Ruth Communicative and emotional facial expression production in children with autism Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), even those with seemingly intact language skills, have difficulty with face-to-face social interaction, with one of their most noticeable deficits being the production of atypical and often jarring facial expressions. Although there is a growing literature on the ability of individuals with ASD to process faces and facial expressions, virtually nothing is known about their ability to produce communicative facial expressions. This project will combine subjective coding of facial expression productions in adolescents with ASD with cutting-edge, infrared motion-tracking of facial features to determine which feature movements drive the perception of awkwardness, establishing the first cohesive picture of the communicative facial expression productions of adolescents with ASD. These data will ultimately be used to support the development of new intervention approaches to improve facial communication and thereby social acceptance of individuals with ASD. $212,250.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Massachusetts Medical School Massachusetts New http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7871583&icde=8917314 No URL available. No URL available. active 2010-2012
Project Id: 3194 2175 None Autism Speaks Fein, Deborah Mimicry and imitation in autism spectrum disorders Many researchers believe that a deficit in mimicry (the tendency to copy gestures and facial expressions of others), and thus an inability to learn that the self and others are similarly emotional beings, may be central to the development of autism. This research will better establish a link between mimicry deficits and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms. The study will also document whether people with autism also lack the biological process resulting from mimicry called facial feedback. Facial feedback is the process by which our inner emotions are affected by our facial gestures, causing us to literally feel what others are feeling through the mimicry of their faces. Such "emotional contagion" enables the typical person to bond more closely and to better interpret others' intentions and state of mind. If impairments in mimicry, facial feedback, and emotional contagion are consistently found in people with ASD, the impairments could suggest a pathway for the development of the disorder. $0.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Private University of Connecticut Connecticut Ongoing http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/grants/mimicry-and-imitation-autism-spectrum-disorders?destination=science%2Fgrant-search%2Fresults%2FMimicry+and+imitation+in+autism+spectrum+disorders No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2010
Project Id: 3300 5P01HD025995-20 3 National Institutes of Health Mitchell, Teresa Multimodal analyses of face processing in autism & down syndrome Persons with developmental disabilities have difficulties in the perception of emotion from facial cues in comparison with age-matched peers without disabilities. While such difficulties are often associated with autism, they are also reported in persons with Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities. This study will compare two populations with disabilities associated with mental retardation - autism and Down Syndrome - that show reported difficulties in emotion perception and compare them with mental age-matched children who have exhibited typical development. The research will evaluate stimulus control in facial stimuli using several methods, including discrimination training, eye-tracking, and electrophysiology. The ultimate research goal is translational and pointed toward the possibility that deficits in emotion recognition from facial cues may be correctable, in whole or in part, via training. $156,083.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of Massachusetts Medical School Massachusetts Ongoing http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8137359&icde=8966188 No URL available. No URL available. active 2007-2012
Project Id: 3388 951580 None National Science Foundation Oakes, Lisa Experience and cognitive development in infancy In this project, Dr. Oakes will examine how infants' everyday experiences shape their learning. Most theories of cognitive development argue for the role of experience in processes such as learning, memory, and perception, but few studies have systematically examined how experience shapes changes in cognition. This project will fill this gap by systematically examining how naturally occurring differences in experience (e.g., living with a pet versus not living with a pet) and experimentally enhanced experience (e.g., being provided with a picture book of unfamiliar animals to read) contributes to infants' learning of, attention to, and perception of images. In the first year of life, as infants interact with the people and animals they encounter, they learn about faces, emotions, language, the behavior typical of particular kinds of animals (e.g., dogs bark and cats meow), etc. This project will enhance our understanding of this important process by examining aspects of looking behavior by 3- to 9-month-old infants as they visually investigate images of animals and human faces. Differences in how long infants look, precisely where they look (e.g. the heads versus the tails of dogs, the eyes versus the ears of human faces) will reveal how infants are perceiving, attending to, and learning about those images. By comparing infants with more or less relevant experience, this project will uncover differences in how infants' previous experience influences their learning about images. Moreover, by experimentally enhancing experience through the provision of picture books created for this study (e.g., exposing an infant who does not have pets to pictures of cats), this project will demonstrate how experience actually induces change in cognitions. The project will add to our understanding of how experience influences cognitive development both by observing the effect of naturally occurring differences in experience on infants' learning, and by testing the effect of experimentally enhancing infants' experience on their learning. In addition, this project may contribute to our understanding of atypical development and how to intervene with infants at risk for atypical development. That is, although disorders such as Williams Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder develop over time, there is little understanding of what events occur in infancy that influence the outcomes for children with such disorders. Because atypical attention to and visual scanning of images of people and faces are characteristic of these disorders, it is possible that experiences in infancy contribute to the particular developmental trajectory of children with these disorders. A comprehensive understanding of how experience contributes to typical development may be important for both future investigations of such neurodevelopmental disorders and understanding how altering children's experience may help protect them from some of the outcomes associated with such disorders. The results of this work will be broadly disseminated, not only to the scientific community, but also to parents and child care professionals through lectures to parenting groups, participation at the Yolo County Child Development Conference, and television and radio. $101,841.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of California, Davis California New http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0951580 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0951580&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2010-2013
Project Id: 3389 921634 None National Science Foundation Oakes, Lisa Infants' developing representation of object function How do infants come to learn about and understand the large numbers of objects, events, and people they encounter? It is remarkable that by one year of age, the typical infant in middle-class American culture knows that dogs say "woof," you drink from cups, and there is a class of round objects called "balls." Science has focused both on how infants come to represent the properties of particular objects (e.g., my teddy has a red shirt) and classes of objects (e.g., cars have wheels). The functions of objects are central to many concepts -- we learn not only the surface features of objects (such as shape and color), but also about how objects can be used and for what purpose they were created (e.g., to hold liquid, to make marks on paper). Despite the large literature documenting infants' impressive abilities to acquire knowledge about objects, and the importance of function to how objects are represented, we know little about infants' emerging abilities to represent function. This work will address this gap by examining infants' emerging understanding of function from 6 to 12 months, and by determining how their developing abilities to manually explore objects (i.e., pick them up, rotate them) is related to their understanding of function. By measuring aspects of infants' looking behavior -- how long they watch particular events, where they look -- we can understand how they learn about and represent the objects and actions in these events. By observing how they play with objects -- how easily they pick them up from the floor, how long they inspect objects in their hands -- we can measure developmental changes in infants' abilities to manually explore objects. In this work, both looking at images and playing with objects will be assessed in infants to document how developments in the two areas are related. Filling this gap in our knowledge is important because of the significance of function for understanding object representations in general and because understanding typical development of object representation is critically important for a full appreciation of atypical developmental patterns of object representation, such as those associated with Williams Syndrome and autism spectrum disorder. Individuals with these disorders often have difficulty learning about and representing objects and actions, particularly the actions performed by humans on objects. Unfortunately, these disorders are often not identified until later in childhood, and as a result we know little about the early emergence of these atypical patterns of development. A comprehensive understanding of the typical development of object representation in infancy may aid in early identification and treatment of individuals with such neurodevelopmental disorders. A full understanding of typical development of basic cognitive abilities, such as infants' representation of objects, is also important for educating parents and caregivers about development and appropriate expectations for infants. The results of this work will be broadly disseminated, not only to the scientific community through publication in scientific journals and presentation at national and international conferences, but also to parents and childcare professionals through lectures given to parenting groups, participation at the Yolo County Child Development Conference, and television and radio. $63,258.67 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal University of California, Davis California Ongoing http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0921634 http://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_windowLabel=T31400570011264188753337&wsrp-urlType=blockingAction&wsrp-url=&wsrp-requiresRewrite=false&wsrp-navigationalState=&wsrp-interactionState=T31400570011264188753337_action%3DviewRsrDetail%26T31400570011264188753337_fedAwrdId%3D0921634&wsrp-mode=wsrp%3Aview&wsrp-windowState= No URL available. active 2009-2012
Project Id: 3315 5P01HD003008-42 68 National Institutes of Health Paul, Rhea Studies of social communication in speakers with autism spectrum disorder The proposed study will examine two components of social communication in speakers with autism: conversation skills, especially as they are impacted by the presence of narrow interests; and production and perception of prosody, which is the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. The cross-sectional study will include preadolescent and adolescent children with autism and contrast them with typically developing children. The data will help elucidate the relations between prosodic perception and production, identify prevalence and patterns of prosodic deficits within ASD, and lead toward the development of intervention approaches to address these deficits. $292,249.00 Biology Question 2: Other Dot not applicable No Federal Yale University Connecticut Ongoing http://projectreporter.nih.gov/project_info_description.cfm?aid=8134827&icde=8966077 No URL available. No URL available. active 2008-2012
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